


call me a thief

by avengersincamphalfbloodstardis



Series: Music [7]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Barry Allen Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt, Hurt Barry Allen, Inspired by Music, Leonard Snart Lives, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Plans For The Future, Sad, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 19:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16771789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avengersincamphalfbloodstardis/pseuds/avengersincamphalfbloodstardis
Summary: Call me a thiefThere's been a robberyI left with her heartTore it apartMade no apologies***Lips hit you like a drive by, frost biteIce cold, I mean they cut you like a sharp knifeThief ~ Ansel ElgortLeonard doesn’t deal with emotions, he plays games. Barry knows that better than anyone.





	call me a thief

**Author's Note:**

> So if you're familiar with my other fics, you know that I tend to write fluff or smut, and if I write angst it's angst with a happy ending or with the intent of fix-it later on... This is not one of those fics. I tried to give it a more hopeful ending, I swear, but the characters do what they want. I couldn't figure out where to take it so it would be happier. In my mind, what happens after this fic is happy, but it's not particularly clear at the end, so you can read it however you like.

If it had been anyone but Leonard Snart, it would have seemed like pure chance. The slick, cold floors that allowed for the soft clump of steps to echo and bounce, drawing out the edge of suspense, make it all the sharper. The dark shadows would have been due to the night swelling outside, not to a deliberate ambience. It would have been coincidence that this is where they met again, after... well. After everything.

But it _was_ Leonard Snart.

Every note of this symphony was crafted.

Barry knew this. There were few things he knew better by now, than the ways that Leonard Snart played his games. There was art and finesse to it, but the intention was the same.

After all, Barry had learned that too well to forget it now.

So he waited, back to the approaching figure, letting Len have his dramatics, even heightening them a little by not turning to look, because what else would Len love more about this than the little details?

Len’s steps came to a slow stop behind Barry, and the music stopped. It was a still pause, but one that _threatened_ to tremble, like it knew how close Barry was to the edge, and that it would take only the slightest wobble to knock him clean off his feet.

And just when the silence was stretched so thin it would snap if the wrong note played, Len spoke.

“Barry.”

Barry let out a shaky breath that he hadn’t known was trapped in his lungs. It was almost an answer, and definitely a response.

Len didn’t say anything again, waiting for Barry to play his part.

But maybe Barry wasn’t interested in letting Len craft a perfect play here. Not where he could feel every nerve waking slowly, bracing for the lashing, eyes already prepared to cry.

“How was your trip?” And God, the words were light and so, so clean, but his voice was racing along the line of breaking. One accidental veer and it would crack.

The pause between his question and Len’s answer seemed a little less deliberate, like maybe Barry had gone off script and surprised him. But then his words came smoothly and Barry wondered how closely he was playing his intended character.

“Is that what you’re calling it?” Len asked, and goddammit, where Barry’s words had barely made it out alive, Len’s actually managed the easy slip he’d intended.

With less than a second of preparation, in a moment of now or never, Barry turned and looked him in the eyes. It hurt more than it would have to take the icy shards from the cold gun to the heart, but the sensation was similar.

“That’s what it was, wasn’t it?” Were his words stronger now, or just louder? Barry couldn’t tell. “Just a little detour before coming back to set up shop.”

Len seemed to consider that, or maybe he was just considering Barry altogether. He knew what he’d left behind; would Barry have changed enough for Len to have to reevaluate?

“I suppose it’s not... dissimilar to a trip,” Len said, finally. “Although, the coming back to set up shop may not be accurate.”

This surprised Barry, though nothing could set him further off balance than the situation he was in already, so it did not hit him like it might have under other circumstances. “That so?”

Len shrugged, and even the roll of his shoulders was a calculated move, the easy lift smooth and practiced, with a subtle head tilt to the side. To the untrained eye it would have seemed casual; to Barry’s eye, it looked like a weapon.

“I’ve been offered a place on the team,” Len said, walking again, this time in a curve around Barry, moving the point of focus so that Barry had to turn to keep up. “A gig of heroics that involve my reputable skills, and the chance to thieve throughout time, just for kicks.”

“Heroics?” Barry said, practically dumbfounded. That had to be a trick, using that word, one that Len loathed so entirely. It was a ploy, a distraction, a red herring. Barry’s gaze was supposed to be drawn to that word and Len would be able to unveil his true weapon, just to stab Barry when he wasn’t looking.

The shrug that followed was less fluid, a jerkier movement than before. “Of sorts.”

“And you’re considering taking a gig of _heroics_.” Barry hissed the word with as much venom as he could, letting it slither from his lips like the dart of a snake’s tongue. He could play this game too. “The greatest thief Central City has ever seen, considering _helping_ people?”

The grin that Len gave him was far too self-satisfied. “But imagine if it meant I could become the greatest thief in _time._ ”

This was the wrong script.

They weren’t supposed to be discussing Len joining a team, or helping people. They were supposed to be dancing back and forth over a topic that Barry had tried so hard bury, all while Len twisted the ice sharp deeper into his back.

“You should do it,” Barry said, arms crossed to hold his chest in place. “You can’t pass up a title like that.”

Len’s gaze was glittering like ice as he looked right back at Barry’s face. Had he expected anything different? Did he think that the blow he had struck had seemed like a grasping hand to Barry? There was no way to mistake what had happened and Barry didn’t intend to try. He was done pretending that strikes were touches. For all Len’s talk of not understanding Barry’s never ending goodness, he didn’t see the limit Barry had reached.

And how could he beg him to stay now, when he never got the chance to even try before?

“I’ve taken a lot of opportunities,” Len spoke slowly, with care, and it sounded like an agreement. “Don’t usually regret them.”

Who knew that better than Barry?

The words hung in the air, almost like an offer, if Barry didn’t know that any offer from Leonard Snart came with a stiff price. He knew, of course, what opportunity Len had taken, and exactly how much he didn’t regret it. Neither did Barry, for all the wrong reasons.

If Len expected Barry to give in, to latch onto _usually_ , offer it right back to guide Len into swindling him again, he could forget it. Barry might have a good heart, but he wasn’t stupid. A good heart could only be hurt so many times.

It was impossible to know if Len felt disappointment, frustration, nothing. His carefully arranged poker face only gave away what he wanted it to, and he would never give Barry such an upper hand as to know what he was _feeling_.

“Regret,” Barry said. “Is a difficult thing.”

The words were a painful twist of Barry’s good heart.

The sadness in Len’s eyes had to be a deliberate ploy. “You know it well.”

Barry and regret were old friends. He shrugged, mimicking Len’s earlier casual move. “Not in the ways you might think.”

That seemed to be new information to Len, judging by the delicate lift of his eyebrows, though who was to say if it was an act. “Oh?”

Oh, and Barry was so tired of these games.

“Yes,” he said shortly, and turned, prepared to walk away, to let Len run off to his new life of heroics and thievery, and to go back to his own life, and pretend that Leonard Snart was nothing more than an old enemy.

Len caught his arm with a grip that Barry could easily break, if he could simply bring himself to try.

There was a sort of desperation in Barry’s chest to look to Len’s face and search, search for anything he could that would help him know what he ought to do, but how could he give Len that satisfaction? And so he kept his head down, focusing so hard on only letting his eyes burn and not fill with wetness.

“Regret,” Len said, and his words were slightly rushed now, though they still had an attempt to careful. “Is a difficult thing, like you say. But inspiration is harder.”

Barry would not play the game. He was not going to prompt Len with an _inspiration?_ and speak the lines Len had written.

“I don’t need to attempt heroics,” Len continued. “Not even if it meant being the greatest thief of all time. I would only do it if I were inspired to do so.”

There was a soft pause and Len’s fingers were cold but gentle on Barry’s arm.

“Inspiration,” he said, pushing forward, faster. “Is harder because of regret.”

Please, for the love of God, let some force make Len take his hands off him, stop speaking, stop barreling towards what Barry could see but could not stop.

The pause was too long, too deep, so much unspoken working between them.

Quietly, as though he had heard Barry’s silent plea and had shifted course, much like he had shifted the course of the train so many lifetimes ago, Len spoke.

“You understand.”

The words were soft, not a question, but a statement, and he dropped his hand from Barry’s arm, taking a step back.

Barry’s reply of affirmation went unsaid. Len had not been asking him; no response was necessary.

It was now that he could run, he could finally escape, he could flash free and be done with this forever.

Why did he ache to be hurt again?

He slowly turned instead, finally fixing Len with the watery gaze he had hidden for months, from everyone. No one had seen a single tear shed, and neither would Len, though he would see the effort Barry made to keep that true.

“I wasn’t looking to inspire you.” Though the tears were there, Barry’s voice was finally strong. “And I wasn’t looking to be a regret.”

And he had never felt like more of a regret when he’d woken up that morning to find his bed empty and cold, such a drastic opposite to the heat he’d seen in Len’s eyes above him hours before.

Len’s mouth twisted in a rare show of his hand. “You can’t help but inspire Barry. That’s what heroes do. But you were never the regret.”

“Of course not,” Barry spit, cheeks flaming the color of his suit. “That’s why you left.”

No tears would ever grace the eyes of Leonard Snart, but maybe a little sadness would. “ _That’s_ the regret.”

“I don’t believe you,” Barry said, because his good heart ached to, and he had to quiet it.

“And why should you,” Len said evenly, and even that was not a question.

Because he was a hero. Because he had a good heart. Because of a million different reasons Barry was tired of being given from everyone who simply wanted him to set himself up to be hurt again.

That was the price of being the good guy. He was meant to have endless chances for everyone, until he was reduced to nothing.

“You know what you did,” Barry said, hoping to put a finish in his words. “And you warned me. I should have listened.”

Len stared at him for a moment, lost in what he had orchestrated so well. He shrugged and it was a broken, jerky movement. “I am a thief after all.”

“Yeah,” Barry said. “And a damned good one. The best of all time. Because you made off with the heroes heart.”

“I might have stolen it,” Len retorted. “But I never learned how to keep it.”

They stared at each other, and screamed wordlessly into the space between them, though it was not like before, when they heard each other’s meanings; they could not, for the life of them, understand what the other said.

Was it a determination to break Barry further that kept Len going?

“If I leave-”

“Again,” Barry interjected coldly.

“Again,” Len allowed. “You would let me come back.”

He should say no. He _would_ say no. He would tell Len to fuck off to another time and steal what he could and never set foot near him again, unless it was in battle as Captain Cold. The only way he’d let himself be hurt again was from a blast of the cold gun, and Len could keep his clever manipulation to himself.

But there was a break in Len’s facade, and Barry could still see what he remembered of that night, a painful need—no, it was different than that. A need meant that Len’s hand was forced; this was a want, a desire for better that Len would wish to strive for than be made to.

Barry was not going to hand Len another chance, but he might let him earn it.

He stepped closer, bringing them face to face, so much like that night when Len had stepped into his space and dropped the game. They’d faced off before and they faced off now, shedding their weapons, not for the first time.

“I went to bed with you as one person,” Barry told him. “And I woke up another.”

“I left as one person,” Len answered. “And I got home another.”

The corner of Barry’s mouth quirked in a sad smile. “I still don’t believe you.”

“But you’ll let me prove it?” And finally, Len asked him a question, after assuming his answers for so long.

“Yes,” Barry said. It didn’t feel like a line in a play, a note in a song. It felt like an answer, like an exchange. “Now leave. Go be the greatest thief of all time.”

“I’ll come back,” Len assured him.

Barry smiled, a tragic edge to it, because he knew he’d once again fallen into his trap as a hero. “I’m counting on it.”

But he wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments and kudos if you liked! sorry it it was painful


End file.
